Duologies and trilogies are plentiful in the fantasy genre of literature; double-features and proper trilogies are common in cinema. Until about a week ago, I’d never thought about whether or not non-fiction books could be read in terms of a pair or a trio — even when it’s obvious. I finished reading Sue Black’s book Written in Bone a week ago and realized it and her previous book All That Remains would be the perfect non-fiction duology. If you’d like a trilogy, start with John Bateson’s book The Education of a Coroner.
My favorite part of the human body is the clavicle, the collar bone. I learned in Written in Bone that “[while] all primates possess a collar bone, it is rudimentary in many mammals and absent altogether in the ungulates, which include a variety of animals from horses to pigs, and even the hippopotamus,” and the reason that cats can squeeze into spaces that appear too small for their bodies is that they have “very rudimentary clavicles” (Black, 159).
Oh, and it’s not even a mandatory part of the anatomy. Clavicles can break easily and puncture the “subclavian artery and vein,” and they can be “taken out as long as the muscles can be stitched to each other” (Black, 160). The collar bone “is the first bone in the human body to start to form and it does so in the fifth week of intrauterine life…” (Black, 161).
If you want to see a good example of teamwork, look no further than your own body. Everything that you do requires a lot of coordination between many different parts of you, most of which you don’t (have to) consciously think about to achieve like standing, sitting, picking up an object with one or both hands or even your toes. It takes “at least six muscles in your forearm to activate the wrist and the joints of the index finger and thumb” to perform the action of picking up a writing utensil with said fingers (Black, 228).
Now, consider everything going on inside of you that you never have to think about unless something doesn’t feel right. That’s the closest any person is going to get to truly multi-tasking.
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What am I reading now? Charlotte Bronte‘s Jane Eyre (Signature Classics edition) and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. If you’ve ever been somewhere online where discussions of “scariest book you’ve ever read” happen, someone will inevitably mention it. I’ve had House of Leaves for a while and decided to start it after finishing Written in Bone. The book spends about fifty or so pages setting up atmosphere, narrators, and more tangible plot points that are creepy…and then page sixty-eight hits and jaw-drop.
I was reading in bed, and it felt like i was watching a horror movie where characters are chased or exploring abandoned, dark buildings. Obviously, the scary factor increases for a reader who can visualize what they read, making it much more intense than it would be for someone who has no mind’s eye. I read Jane Eyre during the day and House of Leaves at night.
I also have the Poe album which is a companion piece to the book. Poe is Mark Z. Danielewski’s sister.
Sitting Pugs: Sports Movies 